In process control systems it is very important to keep production running at all times as even a minor halt in production will cost large amounts of money. Because of this, maintenance is seen as very important in order to keep the production up and running.
One useful tool provided for local maintenance in a process control system is described in SE1300138.
Maintenance can be very expensive as it is sometimes necessary to bring in external experts to help with advanced operations the regular personnel might not have the expertise to handle by themselves. Collaboration over a telephone line between the local worker and the expert is not effective enough in all situations as the expert is not able to see what the local worker is doing. Sending pictures back and forth is also a slow way of sharing information. The expert may need to see what happens on site and may need to be able to instruct the personnel on site without the risk of any misinterpretation.
It can take a long time to get hold of the correct expert and fly in this expert to the site. In the case of an unexpected breakdown this can lead to long downtimes in the process control system as the expert might have to travel long distances to get to the site.
Some efforts have been made for improving on the situation. US 2011/0310122 does for instance describe a remote instruction system provided in relation to circuit boards. In this system an image is captured of an object and an annotation image and an attention images are projected on to such an object.
Similar systems are disclosed in JP 2009-194697 and JP 2003-209832.
However, there is still room for improvement within the field, especially in the freedom of use of projector and camera of a data presenting device.